Dubai’s Majid Al Futtaim Rebrands, Looks Beyond UAE

Majid Al Futtaim, one of the biggest family conglomerates in Dubai, is expanding its retail and property portfolio across the Middle East and Africa, and hopes a small tweak in its branding will make a big difference to its fortunes.

Founded in 1992, the company already operates some of the region’s biggest malls, hotels, the Carrefour supermarket chain, and an indoor Ski slope, and it aims to grow at a significant rate over the next five years.

On Tuesday, the company announced a rebranding to help facilitate that growth. It will still be called Majid Al Futtaim, but will now place a jazzy ‘M’ for Majid next to all its sub-brands, such as Carrefour, Mall of the Emirates, Ski Dubai, City Centre malls and Vox cinemas.

There will be more brand consistency than before, which will put the company on a footing closer to Dubai’s most well-known corporate brands, such as Emaar Properties, Jumeirah and Emirates Airline.

And that’s important because MAF, as the company is widely known, is looking to expand rapidly beyond the United Arab Emirates, where 70% of its assets are currently based, according to the chief executive Iyad Malas.

Other property companies such as Emaar and Damac Properties have used their singular branding to help grow their footprint around the Middle East, while MAF has, until now, pushed its sub-brands.

“As we go forward we see tremendous opportunity to replicate what we have seen in the U.A.E. and go into new markets,” said Mr. Malas.

MAF is split up into three divisions that will all receive the M branding in some form in their own sub-brands. MAF Properties looks after the company’s 16 malls and 11 hotels; Retail encompasses the nearly 100 Carrefour hypermarkets and supermarkets in the Middle East; and Ventures operates 91 Vox cinema screens and facilities such as Ski Dubai.

The company is looking to expand all these concepts throughout the region, taking advantage of shopper’s penchant for visiting malls. It will invest $1 billion each year up to 2018 on building new malls, upgrading current shopping centres and developing mixed-use retail, residential and hotel communities, Mr. Malas said.

Egypt, Lebanon and Oman are some of the key markets where the company will launch property projects and open hypermarkets.

All of this growth can be funded by cash flow, Mr. Malas said, ruling out an initial public offering for the company. Revenues at MAF will grow about 10% to close to $6 billion this year, while operating profits will increase up to 13% to about $900 million, he added.